“You're traveling?"
"Yes."
"Abroad?"
"Well, yes. Britain, then Europe. Italy. Germany."
"Research."
"Um in part. And you?"
"I hadn't been planning on it, but yes. In part,” Barr said, regarding him with interest, “because of the conversation we had in Florida."
"Oh?"
"Your book."
"Oh."
"Soon after we got home. I decided to go to meet some colleagues instead of resting at home."
"Colleagues where?"
"Taffy worried, because she couldn't come. Family matters. She worries too much. She thinks she needs to be near me at all times. To take down my last worlds maybe. I mean words."
"Aha."
"Egypt,” Barr said. “A small conference of paleographers."
"And you're delayed as well?"
"Oh hours. We'd better have a drink. Come along."
"I think they closed the bar."
"The Olympic Club. For frequent flyers. Just down here,” Barr said.
An awesome refusal broached in Pierce's soul. He already suspected that he had entered into one of those chain narratives where an innocent is handed on from one garrulous interlocutor to another, follows fingerboards to the next who points him to the next. Until he refuses to play anymore. And so wins . You're nothing but a pack of cards .
After a moment, though, he gathered up his shabby impedimenta and followed his former teacher, who had begun to roll away purposefully through the crowd.
* * * *
It was his mother whom Pierce had gone to Florida to visit, on the first leg (as he would come to see it) of this his way away: the little motel where she and her friend Doris now lived and made a living, where she had gone after Sam Oliphant was dead. Pierce came to make her speak, to answer him at last, to explain why it was that everything that happened to him or ever could happen to him seemed to have been fixed by his twelfth year, why he could somehow never go onward but only turn back: a fate like one of those diagrams in the Boy Scout manual he had once cherished, bowline on a bight maybe, a rope following minute arrows, inward, around, out but always back in again, strong and un-undoable.
For instance, there in that little Florida resort town, on the esplanade, he'd met Barr. He'd first read a book of Barr's in his twelfth year. Barr had afterward been his advisor at Noate University, and had used his long pull to get Pierce his first teaching job, at Barnabas College. There was apparently no life passage he could make without Barr standing there, or nearby, amused and foresighted.
"Now tell me all about it,” Barr had asked him, there in the sun-warmed Florida evening. “Your concept."
He had brought Pierce to his own little condo on the beach, to have a drink with him and his wife, Taffy. Second wife. Over the last dozen years Taffy had been appearing more and more prominently in the forematter of Barr's books, moving up from the Acknowledgments page (where she had first appeared under her own last name), to a Dedication, to a line beneath Barr's own on the title page (though in smaller type), lastly to full partner, not in smaller type. By Frank Walker Barr and Taffy B. Barr. The books themselves seemed unchanged.
"Well,” Pierce said, sun through their window impaling the promised drink in his hand. “It was something you said. Once when we met in New York."
"Ah yes."
"You talked about how someone might do history even if there weren't universities and tenure. How you could go to work answering questions, questions about the past that people have."
"Ah yes,” Barr said again, though Pierce was unconvinced he actually remembered this exchange, in a dark hotel bar so long ago.
"As an example,” Pierce said, “you asked why so many people believe that Gypsies are able to tell fortunes. Prophesy. Do magic. Where they get these supposed powers."
Taffy, who was years younger and a couple of inches taller than her husband, watched and listened as she made a cold supper in the condo's tiny galley. Pink shrimp and avocado and bright tomatoes. Her coloring was what
"Yes."
"Abroad?"
"Well, yes. Britain, then Europe. Italy. Germany."
"Research."
"Um in part. And you?"
"I hadn't been planning on it, but yes. In part,” Barr said, regarding him with interest, “because of the conversation we had in Florida."
"Oh?"
"Your book."
"Oh."
"Soon after we got home. I decided to go to meet some colleagues instead of resting at home."
"Colleagues where?"
"Taffy worried, because she couldn't come. Family matters. She worries too much. She thinks she needs to be near me at all times. To take down my last worlds maybe. I mean words."
"Aha."
"Egypt,” Barr said. “A small conference of paleographers."
"And you're delayed as well?"
"Oh hours. We'd better have a drink. Come along."
"I think they closed the bar."
"The Olympic Club. For frequent flyers. Just down here,” Barr said.
An awesome refusal broached in Pierce's soul. He already suspected that he had entered into one of those chain narratives where an innocent is handed on from one garrulous interlocutor to another, follows fingerboards to the next who points him to the next. Until he refuses to play anymore. And so wins . You're nothing but a pack of cards .
After a moment, though, he gathered up his shabby impedimenta and followed his former teacher, who had begun to roll away purposefully through the crowd.
* * * *
It was his mother whom Pierce had gone to Florida to visit, on the first leg (as he would come to see it) of this his way away: the little motel where she and her friend Doris now lived and made a living, where she had gone after Sam Oliphant was dead. Pierce came to make her speak, to answer him at last, to explain why it was that everything that happened to him or ever could happen to him seemed to have been fixed by his twelfth year, why he could somehow never go onward but only turn back: a fate like one of those diagrams in the Boy Scout manual he had once cherished, bowline on a bight maybe, a rope following minute arrows, inward, around, out but always back in again, strong and un-undoable.
For instance, there in that little Florida resort town, on the esplanade, he'd met Barr. He'd first read a book of Barr's in his twelfth year. Barr had afterward been his advisor at Noate University, and had used his long pull to get Pierce his first teaching job, at Barnabas College. There was apparently no life passage he could make without Barr standing there, or nearby, amused and foresighted.
"Now tell me all about it,” Barr had asked him, there in the sun-warmed Florida evening. “Your concept."
He had brought Pierce to his own little condo on the beach, to have a drink with him and his wife, Taffy. Second wife. Over the last dozen years Taffy had been appearing more and more prominently in the forematter of Barr's books, moving up from the Acknowledgments page (where she had first appeared under her own last name), to a Dedication, to a line beneath Barr's own on the title page (though in smaller type), lastly to full partner, not in smaller type. By Frank Walker Barr and Taffy B. Barr. The books themselves seemed unchanged.
"Well,” Pierce said, sun through their window impaling the promised drink in his hand. “It was something you said. Once when we met in New York."
"Ah yes."
"You talked about how someone might do history even if there weren't universities and tenure. How you could go to work answering questions, questions about the past that people have."
"Ah yes,” Barr said again, though Pierce was unconvinced he actually remembered this exchange, in a dark hotel bar so long ago.
"As an example,” Pierce said, “you asked why so many people believe that Gypsies are able to tell fortunes. Prophesy. Do magic. Where they get these supposed powers."
Taffy, who was years younger and a couple of inches taller than her husband, watched and listened as she made a cold supper in the condo's tiny galley. Pink shrimp and avocado and bright tomatoes. Her coloring was what
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